Publication

This brief illustrates that patents may raise the prices of pharmaceutical drugs paid by governments and consumers in poor countries, but may also provide incentives for corporate investment in research on lifesaving drugs. The author claims that incentives to invest in research on "global diseases" that are prevalent in developed and developing countries are very different from the investment incentives for diseases that primarily affect developing countries. The author presents a global patent system that would differentiate the extent of protection given to products in accordance with their extremely different global markets and existing research incentives.